Ten Years Later

Alexandre Dumas Père

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pubOne.info present you this new edition. Towards the middle of the month of May, in the year 1660, at nine o'clock in the morning, when the sun, already high in the heavens, was fast absorbing the dew from the ramparts of the castle of Blois a little cavalcade, composed of three men and two pages, re-entered the city by the bridge, without producing any other effect upon the passengers of the quay beyond a first movement of the hand to the head, as a salute, and a second movement of the tongue to express, in the purest French then spoken in France: "There is Monsieur returning from hunting. " And that was all.

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 06 novembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819930693
• Langue: English

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TEN YEARS LATER
by Alexandre Dumas
THE VICOMTE DE BRAGELONNE.
Volume I.
CHAPTER 1. The Letter.
Towards the middle of the month of May, in the year1660, at nine o'clock in the morning, when the sun, already high inthe heavens, was fast absorbing the dew from the ramparts of thecastle of Blois a little cavalcade, composed of three men and twopages, re-entered the city by the bridge, without producing anyother effect upon the passengers of the quay beyond a firstmovement of the hand to the head, as a salute, and a secondmovement of the tongue to express, in the purest French then spokenin France: “There is Monsieur returning from hunting. ” And thatwas all.
Whilst, however, the horses were climbing the steepacclivity which leads from the river to the castle, severalshop-boys approached the last horse, from whose saddle-bow a numberof birds were suspended by the beak.
On seeing this, the inquisitive youths manifestedwith rustic freedom their contempt for such paltry sport, and,after a dissertation among themselves upon the disadvantages ofhawking, they returned to their occupations; one only of thecurious party, a stout, stubby, cheerful lad, having demanded howit was that Monsieur, who, from his great revenues, had it in hispower to amuse himself so much better, could be satisfied with suchmean diversions.
“Do you not know, ” one of the standers-by replied,“that Monsieur's principal amusement is to weary himself? ”
The light-hearted boy shrugged his shoulders with agesture which said as clear as day: “In that case I would rather beplain Jack than a prince. ” And all resumed their labors.
In the meanwhile, Monsieur continued his route withan air at once so melancholy and so majestic, that he certainlywould have attracted the attention of spectators, if spectatorsthere had been; but the good citizens of Blois could not pardonMonsieur for having chosen their gay city for an abode in which toindulge melancholy at his ease, and as often as they caught aglimpse of the illustrious ennuye, they stole away gaping, or drewback their heads into the interior of their dwellings, to escapethe soporific influence of that long pale face, of those wateryeyes, and that languid address; so that the worthy prince wasalmost certain to find the streets deserted whenever he chanced topass through them.
Now, on the part of the citizens of Blois this was aculpable piece of disrespect, for Monsieur was, after the king—nay, even, perhaps before the king— the greatest noble of thekingdom. In fact, God, who had granted to Louis XIV. , thenreigning, the honor of being son of Louis XIII. , had granted toMonsieur the honor of being son of Henry IV. It was not then, or,at least it ought not to have been, a trifling source of pride forthe city of Blois, that Gaston of Orleans had chosen it as hisresidence, and he his court in the ancient castle of itsstates.
But it was the destiny of this great prince toexcite the attention and admiration of the public in a verymodified degree wherever he might be. Monsieur had fallen into thissituation by habit.
It was not, perhaps, this which gave him that air oflistlessness. Monsieur had been tolerably busy in the course of hislife. A man cannot allow the heads of a dozen of his best friendsto be cut off without feeling a little excitement, and as, sincethe accession of Mazarin to power, no heads had been cut off,Monsieur's occupation was gone, and his morale suffered fromit.
The life of the poor prince was, then, very dull.After his little morning hawking-party on the banks of the Beuvion,or in the woods of Chiverny, Monsieur crossed the Loire, went tobreakfast at Chambord, with or without an appetite and the city ofBlois heard no more of its sovereign lord and master till the nexthawking-day.
So much for the ennui extra muros; of the ennui ofthe interior we will give the reader an idea if he will with usfollow the cavalcade to the majestic porch of the castle of thestates.
Monsieur rode a little steady-paced horse, equippedwith a large saddle of red Flemish velvet, with stirrups in theshape of buskins; the horse was of a bay color; Monsieur'spourpoint of crimson velvet corresponded with the cloak of the sameshade and the horse's equipment, and it was only by this redappearance of the whole that the prince could be known from his twocompanions, the one dressed in violet, the other in green. He onthe left, in violet, was his equerry; he on the right, in green,was the grand veneur.
One of the pages carried two gerfalcons upon aperch, the other a hunting-horn, which he blew with a careless noteat twenty paces from the castle. Every one about this listlessprince did what he had to do listlessly.
At this signal, eight guards, who were lounging inthe sun in the square court, ran to their halberts, and Monsieurmade his solemn entry into the castle.
When he had disappeared under the shades of theporch, three or four idlers, who had followed the cavalcade to thecastle, after pointing out the suspended birds to each other,dispersed with comments upon what they saw: and, when they weregone, the street, the place, and the court all remained desertedalike.
Monsieur dismounted without speaking a word, wentstraight to his apartments, where his valet changed his dress, andas Madame had not yet sent orders respecting breakfast, Monsieurstretched himself upon a chaise longue, and was soon as fast asleepas if it had been eleven o'clock at night.
The eight guards, who concluded their service forthe day was over, laid themselves down very comfortably in the sunupon some stone benches; the grooms disappeared with their horsesinto the stables, and, with the exception of a few joyous birds,startling each other with their sharp chirping in the tuftedshrubberies, it might have been thought that the whole castle wasas soundly asleep as Monsieur was.
All at once, in the midst of this delicious silence,there resounded a clear ringing laugh, which caused several of thehalberdiers in the enjoyment of their siesta to open at least oneeye.
This burst of laughter proceeded from a window ofthe castle, visited at this moment by the sun, that embraced it inone of those large angles which the profiles of the chimneys markout upon the walls before mid-day.
The little balcony of wrought iron which advanced infront of this window was furnished with a pot of red gilliflowers,another pot of primroses, and an early rose-tree, the foliage ofwhich, beautifully green, was variegated with numerous red specksannouncing future roses.
In the chamber lighted by this window was a squaretable, covered with an old large-flowered Haarlem tapestry; in thecenter of this table was a long-necked stone bottle, in which wereirises and lilies of the valley; at each end of this table was ayoung girl.
The position of these two young people was singular;they might have been taken for two boarders escaped from a convent.One of them, with both elbows on the table, and a pen in her hand,was tracing characters upon a sheet of fine Dutch paper; the other,kneeling upon a chair, which allowed her to advance her head andbust over the back of it to the middle of the table, was watchingher companion as she wrote, or rather hesitated to write.
Thence the thousand cries, the thousand railleries,the thousand laughs, one of which, more brilliant than the rest,had startled the birds in the gardens, and disturbed the slumbersof Monsieur's guards.
We are taking portraits now; we shall be allowed,therefore, we hope, to sketch the two last of this chapter.
The one who was leaning in the chair— that is tosay, the joyous, the laughing one— was a beautiful girl of fromeighteen to twenty, with brown complexion and brown hair, splendid,from eyes which sparkled beneath strongly-marked brows, andparticularly from her teeth, which seemed to shine like pearlsbetween her red coral lips. Her every movement seemed the accent ofa sunny nature, she did not walk— she bounded.
The other, she who was writing, looked at herturbulent companion with an eye as limpid, as pure, and as blue asthe azure of the day. Her hair, of a shaded fairness, arranged withexquisite taste, fell in silky curls over her lovely mantlingcheeks; she passed across the paper a delicate hand, whose thinnessannounced her extreme youth. At each burst of laughter thatproceeded from her friend, she raised, as if annoyed, her whiteshoulders in a poetical and mild manner, but they were wanting inthat richfulness of mold which was likewise to be wished in herarms and hands.
“Montalais! Montalais! ” said she at length, in avoice soft and caressing as a melody, “you laugh too loud— youlaugh like a man! You will not only draw the attention of messieursthe guards, but you will not hear Madame's bell when Madame rings.”
This admonition neither made the young girl calledMontalais cease to laugh and gesticulate. She only replied:“Louise, you do not speak as you think, my dear; you know thatmessieurs the guards, as you call them, have only just commencedtheir sleep, and that a cannon would not waken them; you know thatMadame's bell can be heard at the bridge of Blois, and thatconsequently I shall hear it when my services are required byMadame. What annoys you, my child, is that I laugh while you arewriting; and what you are afraid of is that Madame de Saint-Remy,your mother, should come up here, as she does sometimes when welaugh too loud, that she should surprise us, and that she shouldsee that enormous sheet of paper upon which, in a quarter of anhour, you have only traced the words Monsieur Raoul. Now, you areright, my dear Louise, because after these words, 'Monsieur Raoul,' others may be put so significant and so incendiary as to causeMadame de Saint-Remy to burst out into fire and flames! Hein! isnot that true now? — say. ”
And Montalais redoubled her laughter and noisyprovocations.
The fair girl at length became quite angry; she torethe sheet of paper on which, in fact, the words “M